Fundraiser tickets available now

On Thursday, September 11, we are hosting an evening of live music and dinner to support the Music Maker Foundation. The dinner will be held at a private, mountainside house in the San Juan Mountains of Telluride. Tickets for the dinner are on sale now, click here to purchase. $500 of each ticket benefits the Music Maker Foundation and can be tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.

The 2025 menu for the Music Maker Fundraiser Dinner is here! Chef Eliza Gavin, presents the menu for the event with Champagne and appetizers to kick off the evening while attendees interact with the musicians before a special performance from Earl "Guitar" Williams. Dinner with the artists to follow immediately after the performance.

Meet Chef Eliza Gavin

Chef Eliza is the restaurateur and award-winning chef of 221 South Oak in Telluride. Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Eliza ran her first kitchen while attending college. After graduation from the University of the South, Eliza moved to New Orleans hoping to expand her blossoming culinary career.

Her unique flavor palette reflects on experiences of growing up in the South, working at prestigious fine dining establishments in New Orleans and Napa Valley, attending Le Cordon Bleu in Paris France and from the Rocky Mountains.

After returning from France, Eliza worked on a cookbook before moving to Telluride. She then spent a winter working at 221 before she bought the restaurant in the autumn of 2000. Aside from owning her restaurant, Chef Eliza also earned a spot in Season 10’s Top Chef competition on Bravo. She has also competed on Beat Bobby Flay and Chopped. She has written 3 cookbooks, including an all vegetarian book named, Hold the Meat. Eliza has opened a fast casual restaurant in Telluride named LIZ, after her grandmother. LIZ serves healthy options at reasonable prices.

Meet Earl “Guitar” Williams

Featured musician of the Fundraiser Dinner

For a special night together in Telluride, we present to you a special artist, Earl “Guitar” Williams. He must have always known he’d be a blues guitarist, because, at the age of seven, he made his own guitar by using a cigar box, broomstick, and fishing cord. That was the beginning, and he has never looked back. He leaned in on his music education by hanging out at Gip’s place, a juke joint in his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama, soaking up influences from the musicians who plied the Chitlin’ circuit. As a member of the Music Maker Foundations Blues Revue, he provides guitar chops to a rotating band of players, each one contributing to the musical feast that pours from the stage. At the Salt and Pepper Roots Music Celebration in 2023, Earl represented the blues genre, a sweet little set captured by PBS for live broadcast. The blues, he says is music that taps into the deepest part of a person. “The slow blues … it can help you go deep inside and express your innermost feelings. If you’ve been hurt really bad, it’s good old crying music.” Earl not only styles onstage, but also keeps clients at his hair salon in Birmingham looking tight. While styling hair, he makes a connection with each client, folks he says are a source of inspiration for his songwriting. We’re proud to have this artist of both music and hairstyles play in our mountains.

Music Maker Foundation

Since their founding in 1994, the Foundation has assisted and partnered with over 500 artists, issued over 200 albums and reached over a million people with live performances in over 40 states and 32 countries around the globe. We are honored to work alongside this compassionate organization in an effort to ensure the continuity of some of the purest and most honest forms of music in American history. Want to get involved? You can change lives with a simple music shop purchase or by making a tax-deductible donation today.

"What is worth keeping is worth passing on. Help preserve American music"